Into the Grey
by PeachPanic
Summary: "You will be my downfall, I've seen it. I can show you." A force connection between Rey and Ben set on Ahch-To after TLJ.


_For there are these three things that endure: Faith, Hope and Love, but **the greatest of these is Love**. _

* * *

Back on the Island. I know what I'll find but i'm still here. I dreamed of this island for so long. So many years it sustained me. I dreamed of feeling a spray of salt on my face, a dark cave, murky outlines, warm fires, hands touching...

I see the remnants of the sacred Jedi Temple, still smoldering and smoky. I knew Luke wouldn't be here, he used the last of his power to help us escape. Escape him. I close my eyes. I don't need to be thinking of him right now. I need to focus, I need...

 _Ben_.

His name seems to draw the force connection to me, I feel the now unbearable sting of his presence. I don't want to see him right now. Or ever again. I was satisfied that my last look was of him on his knees, defeated. My hands clench in fists, my temper flaring to life.

We're both being drenched by the rain. I turn and stride away from him. He's following me up the grassy hill. I'm breathing heavy as I yell back at him, "You made your choice why are you here? I won't follow _Kylo Ren_ ," I spit his name out as if it's poison. He catches up to me and tries to grab my arm, I flick my hand up and it's forced to his side. He glares at me, a crack of brilliant light illuminates the sky.

"You see that," He hisses, "Our bond is only growing stronger."

"I don't care. I have things to do, leave."

"You were clinging to something that will never happen!" he says his jaw clenched, "You were searching for something you'll never find in me. Give up, Rey. I'm exactly the monster you said I was."

"Oh would you-" I wheel around, throwing my hands in the air exasperated, "Are all Skywalker men this dramatic? You are not set in stone, Ben! You are not a relic passed down by your family, doomed to destruction and darkness, you can change your name a million times, you can kill your entire family but you will NEVER defeat what is really killing you unless you come to the light. Come to the light, that's where you can find me."

"What would you know about the burden of this heritage?" He murmurs quietly, almost to himself.

"I know!" I roar back, "I am nothing. I come from nothing, yet here I am. I'm nothing, but I bested the great 'Kylo Ren' in battle, I have held my own, I have saved lives and I have taken them. Does that bother you? That I could be stronger than you, _Supreme Leader_?"

He looks as though he wants to kill me. His jaw is shaking, his black gloved hands in fists like mine. I ready myself for it. I'm ready to kill this stupid fool. I'm ready to rid the Galaxy of him, I'm ready to tear my heart from my body if it will shut him up for 5 minutes...but I know this isn't true and I hate it. Every lie I tell to protect myself from him, from letting him in over and over. I hate that I care for this stupid man. I hate that I give a damn about someone who would throw away everything I never had a chance at.

The rain has plastered his hair to his face. His dark eyes won't leave mine. He looks unsure for a moment before he steps forward slowly, hesitantly, "I know you're stronger than me." his eyes lock on mine and then flit away nervously.

I'm panting in the rain, which has now slowed to a soft mist. He is a foot away from me as he raises a shaking hand and places it over my heart.

"You feel what I feel." he says quietly, eyes searching mine, "I can sense it. I know you can too."

"Take your hand off of me or I'll remove it." I hiss through gritted teeth. _Get out_ I think _you're in my head I don't want you here._

He shakes his head, his expression unexpectedly soft, "You need to know. You need to know where you live inside of me, where you've always been, since we were children."

I gasp.

 _Through his eyes he shows me a little girl with unruly brown hair crying in the sand. I see a young boy dressed in brown and white, crouching down next to her murmuring reassurances as she wipes her tears clumsily with small chubby hands. He grins in a way Kylo Ren never has._

 _"Someday, I'll get you away from here. I'll take care of you. I can teach you things." he says smiling and gently tousling her hair. She smacks his hands away grumpily._

 _"I won't go. My parents are going to be here soon." she says petulantly, "and I can take care of myself!"_

 _He throws his head back and laughs at her scrunched up face, "I bet! You're so strong!"_

 _She huffs and throws a handful of sand at him, "Go away!"_

 _He's still grinning as he stands, shaking the sand off of his brown pants, "Okay, i'll go. I'll see you soon sweetheart, I promise."_

"I knew." he continues in a quiet voice, bringing us back to the present, "The moment I sensed you I knew that I had met you somewhere. I couldn't remember for a while. You were erased from my mind for some time. But I saw it in your eyes when we met, you recognized me too. And now you know why."

I'm shaking so hard now my teeth chattering, I feel my anger dissipating. I do remember someone, someone who talked gently to me as a child, the only person who had sweet words for me. Someone who only _I_ could see, like a ghost. I remember one day he never came to talk to me again, and as an adult I chalked it up to a lonely child making friends with a mirage in the desert.

His large hand envelops mine and places it over his own heart, his lips are trembling, "You know what belongs to you."

"Why?" I whisper, tears springing into my eyes, "Why are you telling me this now?"

"You will be my downfall." He says quietly, "I will fight it, I must. I've come too far now. But _it will_ happen."

I feel tears falling fast and heavy from my eyes, "That's not true, you can save yourself I know you can. Don't let them make you believe you're beyond help Ben you never were!"

He strokes the side of my face, brushing a few stray dripping tendrils out of the way. I wonder vaguely if he'd ever seen Han do that to Leia. If he's picked up any of that sort of thing from watching them, or if this is all him. He's looking in to my eyes with such sadness it's all I can do to not reach out, to try and wipe the pain from his face, from his soul. A weak and trembling Ben Solo is the greatest weapon against me. I feel the ever present conflict inside of him. I feel it tearing away at his seams, at the fabric of his heart. I feel another sort of conflict inside of myself, something that stretches deep within me, far back, a fear as old as time.

"You will be my downfall" he reiterates, "I've seen it, I can show you. "

He holds an un-gloved hand up to me as he had before in the cave. I don't want to take it. I know whatever he wants to show me isn't something I want to see. He is patient and waits until I reach out to him. When I feel his skin, the world around us goes black, I turn to see beside us, his vision unfolding.

 _He's on his knees before me. He doesn't cry out, he doesn't fight it. I sense the finality of resignation...a tinge of longing sadness. His eyes, heavy lidded, struggling to stay open._

 _I see myself, teeth clenched, beads of sweat blistering on my forehead, breathing heavy, the echo of a roar hanging in the air. In my hands, his scarlet lightsaber. I withdraw the brilliant red blade and the sizzle of his flesh resounds. He's stroking my cheek as his father did before him, a dribble of bright red runs from a corner of his mouth. He crumples to the side, defeated. It is as if the air has been sucked from my lungs, gravity 20 times its usual force slams against me. The force bond snaps, breaks, and is left hanging in shreds inside of me._

I cry out in anguish, pulling away from his hand. I stumble back on to the ground. I'm disoriented as relief floods through me, I can feel our connection again. The stark contrast has me gasping as if I had just been under water for a long time.

"I won't do it." I whisper hoarsely, my eyes searching, trying to find something to hold on to. "I'll find another way...when did you see this?"

"After you left Crait...and you won't." he says softly.

Suddenly I hear Luke's words echo around in my head, _"This isn't going to turn out the way you think!"_

"I can't." I say, more tears falling, "Ben it'll kill me."

"Why?" he asks, not bothering to hide the misery in his voice, "Your friends will live. The resistance will live on. It's best for you, for the galaxy if I just..."

His words hang in the air unfinished. He doesn't look like the powerful monster I first saw in a vision. I am no longer the prey, but the hunter. _Supreme leader. Kylo Ren_. He just looks like the young boy I met as a child, his eyes are downcast. Shipped off and discarded by a family whose own terror took precedence over his own. The burden of a legacy so great he really is doomed to failure and death if he is not inherently good. Beyond redemption, regarded as broken, unstable, a waste of force sensitivity. Ben Solo who is so used to hearing how much of a monster he is, can't fathom why anyone would want him alive.

I stand up shakily. He won't meet my eyes as I get closer to him. My heart is painful in my chest.

"I don't know what I'm doing," I say nervously, looking up at him through my lashes. I feel my chest rise and fall quickly, my face reddening. I feel a pull akin to gravity orchestrating my movements. I'm closer to him than we've ever been before.

"What _are_ you doing?" he says alarmed. His dark eyes are wide with confusion, he goes to take a step back.

"I just said I don't know." I say in a whisper as I grab his collar, pulling him down to me so our lips touch.

It's like kissing a machine. He is cold, his body rigid with shock and nerves. I don't think, I only feel him and press myself against him, yearning for a different closeness, not this echo of a touch. I need him to be with me, right now. I need him to know what his touch means to me, what it could mean for us. I don't know what has possessed me. I pull back and stroke the side of his face where the ugly scar I gave him crosses his confused face.

 _I'm not giving up on you Ben._

"Come to me." I breath.

He doesn't say anything more because the force bond has faded leaving me alone in the mist. My whisper hanging in the air, hands raised as if he's still before me.

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I always have too many ideas for fics! I'm going to make myself stop at these two so I can at least make _some_ progress in them! I'll be working on chapters for both fics off and on when i'm not working. Thanks for reading!


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